JJJ: Let’s just hire 15 million Americans to do …. something

posted at 12:45 pm on October 13, 2011 by Ed Morrissey

Bring back the WPA! That’s the economic plan proposed by Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr in an interview with Daily Caller’s Nicholas Ballasly, and it’s a bargain. For just $804 billion, Jackson says we can bail out the states, the cities, and hire every unemployed worker in the US. But, er … for how long?

Jackson called for full government employment of the 15 million unemployed and said that Obama should “declare a national emergency” and take “extra-constitutional” action “administratively” — without the approval of Congress — to tackle unemployment.

“I hope the president continues to exercise extraordinary constitutional means, based on the history of Congresses that have been in rebellion in the past,” Jackson said. “He’s looking administratively for ways to advance the causes of the American people, because this Congress is completely dysfunctional.” …

“On several occasions now, we’ve seen … the Congress is in rebellion, determined, as Abraham Lincoln said, to wreck or ruin at all costs. I believe … in the direct hiring of 15 million unemployed Americans at $40,000 a head, some more than $40,000, some less than $40,000 — that’s a $600 billion stimulus. It could be a five-year program. For another $104 billion, we bailout all of the states … for another $100 billion, we bailout all of the cities,” he said.

Jackson added that his $804 billion stimulus plan is the only way to solve the unemployment crisis. “I support the jobs plan. I support the president’s re-election. I support Barack Obama,” he said. “But at this hour, we need a plan that meets the size and scope of the problem to put the American people to work.”

Where to start with this nonsense? Let’s just start with the math. Employing 15 million at a salary of $40,000 would indeed cost $600 billion, but only for a single year — and only if you don’t count non-salary compensation like health and retirement benefits. With overhead traditionally calculated at 20% of salary, the actual payroll costs for that kind of hiring program would be closer to $720 billion per year, and over five years it would add $3.6 trillion to our national debt over and above what we’re already adding now.

And at the end of five years, when we have to raise taxes to cover all the additional debt and suck capital out of the private sector, how will job creation in America respond to 15 million newly-unemployed government workers? Hint: It will be worse than what we face now. This would become a perpetual make-work program and would cripple the American economy for decades.

The same is true with the math for the state and municipal bailouts. We’ve already given states two years of bailouts, courtesy of the block-grant funding from Porkulus I that allowed states to paper over their budget gaps rather than fix their structural problems. Jackson wants this to also continue in perpetuity, which amounts to the taxpayers of one state subsidizing the bad decisions of another. Will that produce fiscal discipline in the state legislatures, or a rush to claim more subsidies through deficit spending? Given the lack of seriousness that the states approached their budget issues in 2009 and 2010 while getting those Porkulus block grants, I’d bet the latter — especially since it allows politicians an opportunity to dodge difficult choices by passing the bills to Washington.

Finally, it’s simply outrageous to hear a sitting Congressman advise a President to bypass the legislative branch and impose economic policy unilaterally. Jackson took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, didn’t he? Oh, if only Jackson knew someone who could present his proposal to Congress so that the representatives of the people could vote to adopt or reject his plan. Hey, wait a minute …

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I have an idea jjj, why don’t you resign from the congress and go out, start a business, hire gobs of people, and have to deal with the taxes and regulations you and those like you have put on businesses? And no jjj, you do not get a waiver on anything!
L

I think we should stop using all these machines we have nowadays for building\resurfacing roads. Just hire more people and use shovels, sledge hammers, and trowels. This will truly put people back to work and help our economy.

Fareed Zakaria: But even if you were, wouldn’t John Maynard Keynes say that if you could employ people to dig a ditch and then fill it up again, that’s fine, they’re being productively employed, they’ll pay taxes, so maybe Boston’s Big Dig was just fine after all.

The people who vote that loon into office need to have the wrong address to their voting station given to them on the next election. I wonder if JJJ would like that bit of extra-constitutional administrative action taken?

Reformers have argued for years that the ultimate weapon of the poverty war should be a program of guaranteed work for every adult willing and physically able to hold a job. Last summer’s urban violence gave new impetus to the idea. The Urban Coalition—a group of business, labor, political, religious and civil rights leaders—backed the proposal, and a bipartisan group of Senate liberals fought for legislation to implement it. But the Johnson Administration actively opposed the bill.

Last week Lyndon Johnson surprisingly came out hard for making the U.S. Government the employer of last resort for the “halfmillion hard-core unemployed in our principal cities.” In his television interview, he declared: “I am going to call in the businessmen of America and say one of two things has to happen: you have to help me go out and find jobs for these people, or we are going to find jobs in the Government for them. I think it will have to be done, as expensive as it is.”

How expensive, Johnson did not say. The unsuccessful Senate bill would have provided $2.8 billion for two years to employ 500,000. Congress gave just $1.77 billion to the entire poverty program for the current fiscal year, and that only after a rough fight. If Johnson seriously pushes a major new job scheme in an election year when taxes and Government spending are already high on the agenda of bitter issues, he can expect a more grinding scrap on Capitol Hill than he had in 1967.

Five police officers who allegedly guarded drug shipments are among 51 other people arrested in a wide-ranging drug and corruption investigation in eastern Arkansas.

Federal authorities in Helena-West Helena announced Tuesday that the four-year investigation dubbed “Operation Delta Blues” led to the indictment of 70 people. That includes5-officers, 51 others and 14 fugitives at large.

The FBI says the focus of the investigation was corrupt law officers dealing with convicted felons who, in some cases, were convicted murderers.

Five law officers were indicted and arrested on Tuesday. They include: Robert Wahls, Herman Eaton, Marlene Kalb, Windston Dean Jackson and Robert Rogers. (Seen in the pictures to the left)

U.S. Attorney Christopher Thyer says the five law officers worked in Phillips and Lee counties.

Thyer says 800 state and federal law enforcement officers fanned out and arrested 51 suspects. Thyer says 14 suspects are still being sought and five were in custody when the arrests began.
(More…)

This is in my neck of the woods over here near Mississippi. Yep, Obama, Clinton & all of them know well about little Arkansas next door. Good for some Honest FBI & local police agents. Get rid of these scum cockroaches crooked drug dealers in governments. Exposed. RAID!!! Aaarrrrggggg!! Yep, good riddence.

“How expensive, Johnson did not say. The unsuccessful Senate bill would have provided $2.8 billion for two years to employ 500,000. Congress gave just $1.77 billion to the entire poverty program for the current fiscal year, and that only after a rough fight. If Johnson seriously pushes a major new job scheme in an election year when taxes and Government spending are already high on the agenda of bitter issues, he can expect a more grinding scrap on Capitol Hill than he had in 1967.”

Well, you are dreaming if you think you could hire and manage 15MM people with only 20% overhead and that you could avoid other benefit costs…you need to take look at some large organizations and if they could do that at 20%, I think the number you are thinking of is allocated overhead, not total other costs

But the most important thing the JJJ said was that he supported extra Constitutional actions…since he took an oath of office to the Constitution, he just violated that oath and should be at least censured by the House

If the fellow was smart enough to be responsible for his actions he would be an oath breaker and expelled from Congress forthwith. Since the man is a dunce, a congenital mooch and an all around mope he will get a pass. Remember, he grew up eating food paid for by money extorted from working people.

Au contraire! He and Bams and the Dems keep talking up the “dysfunction” of Congress to prepare the way for a Hugo Chavez move. Bams will just step in and save the economy…but nationalizing everything.

I realize some of our elected officials are in a panic about job creations, but grasping at billions of straws we don’t have and throwing them at the unemployed isn’t going to work. Besides, what makes him think that all the people who don’t have a job would take one if it was offered to them? I saw a clip from a reporter asking some protester if he were offered a job on Wall Street would he take it and guess what the answer was? Afterwards, he probably headed to the public trough for some free pizza.

“The unemployment rate for African-American workers is nearly twice the national rate.

jobless rate for Black workers is three times the national rate as it is in Cleveland, the city I represent. When parents don’t work, children don’t eat.”

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., pointed out that Bush-era tax cuts were followed by

James Lowry, Senior Advisor to the Boston Consulting Group, said, “We’re dying in the Black community.

If a national infrastructure bank is created, how many minority jobs will it create?”

David Hinson, national director of the Minority Business Development Agency, told the crowd minority-owned businesses employ 5.9 million workers, creating jobs “not only for Black workers but for all Americans. We need diversity.”
(More…………)

My mom will be 80 this year. In talking to her about the gov’t hiring people, I mentioned it being like the WPA…As soon as I said it, she said ….We Poke Along…..I asked what she meant and she said that is how they were referred to “back then”

The Republican jobs plan is cut government and jobs will magically appear … because little angry white male gnomes from the ‘burbs and Toby Keith will make it so.

bifidis on October 13, 2011 at 1:14 PM

Let’s see, obama and the democrats are GROWING government and jobs are magically disappearing…you would think the opposite WOULD work..and it has before.
Little angry white male gnomes from the ‘burbs beat smelly, sh*tsticks from the urban jungle any day. Go back to your OWS love fest.
And, Toby Keith is actually a DEMOCRAT.
I see this as a triple fail for you, regular bowel movements.

JJJ oughta be breakin rocks in the hot sun for attempting to buy the Illinois Senate seat vacated by Obamanure. Why he’s walking around outside the confines of federal prison would be a Pulitzer magnet were he:
-White
-Republican
-Not the sputum of the Marble Mouth Gaddhafi lover.

Which equals $3 TRILLION for a 5 year plan. As in TRILLION, where the hell is that going to come from?
Bishop on October 13, 2011 at 12:52 PM

Considering the fact that Obama added far more than this to the debt since coming to office, I doubt they would have trouble finding it.
This plan would have been much cheaper then the crap they have tried so far. The trick would have been keeping them from spending more when the rest of their ‘base’ complained that these folks are making more than the other folks on minimum wage.

It also comes with a nice fringe benefit. If we were to hook Mr Friedman’s body to an electrical generator, we could probably run Chicago with all the free electricity that spinning body gave off.

I would like to think that there’s at least one member of the Congressional Black Caucus who trembles in fear and disgust every time JJJ or Ellison or one of the other miscreants in the Caucus get into the press.

Let’s just hire 7.5 million people to dig a hole, and the other 7.5 million people to re-fill those holes. Genius!

El_Terrible on October 13, 2011 at 12:49 PM

If you hired 7.5 million people to break windows, and then hired 7.5 million to fix them, it would be even better. There would be an additional 7.5 million glass makers hired, and 7.5 million truck drivers (each taking one piece of glass to a repairman). And 7.5 million new trucks bought to deliver those windows.

With one little executive order, Obama can create 37.5 million new jobs.